all right everywhere but in his inner man; and in this conclusion he
certainly was not far wrong, in more senses than one. But when all was
restored again to the old routine, it became evident that the peculiar
direction of his art in which he had hitherto indulged had ceased to
interest him. The shock had acted chiefly upon that part of his mental
being which had been so absorbed. He would sit for hours without doing
anything, apparently plunged in meditation.--Several weeks elapsed without
any change, and both Lilith and Karl were getting dreadfully anxious about
him. Karl paid him every attention; and the old man, for he now looked
much older than before, submitted to receive his services as well as those
of Lilith. At length, one morning, he said in a slow thoughtful tone:

"'Karl Wolkenlicht, I should like to paint you.'

"'Certainly, sir,' answered Karl, jumping up, 'where would you like me to
sit?'

"So the ice of silence and inactivity was broken, and the painter drew and
painted; and the spring of his art flowed once more; and he made a
beautiful portrait of Karl--a portrait without evil or suffering. And as
soon as he had finished Karl, he began once more to paint Lilith; and when
he had painted her, he composed a picture for the very purpose of
introducing them together; and in this picture there was neither ugliness
nor torture, but human feeling and human hope instead. Then Karl knew that
he might speak to him of Lilith; and he spoke, and was heard with a smile.
But he did not dare to tell him the truth of the vampire story till one
day that Teufelsbuerst was lying on the floor of a room in Karl's ancestral
castle, half smothered in grandchildren; when the only answer it drew from
the old man was a kind of shuddering laugh and the words--'Don't speak of
it, Karl, my boy!'"